The year I got a blue remote-controlled Ferrari… and learned to paint

By Javon Vickerie

It was 2000 and I was eight years old. I was late getting out of bed that Christmas Eve as I had been involved in painting our house and that chore had ended sometime around 3 am.

The day before the painting activity, my dad decided that Christmas needed to be special. As an eight-year-old boy, I thought my dad would have gone all out and bought a Christmas tree, finally, and we would have presents under it.

Instead, he went and bought paint and I had my first painting class, which took me no time to catch on because he was the one doing it while I watched on.

We spent the entire day painting walls and waiting for the